Messages (Mail and Texts) do not show Read across devices

Argh. MacBook and iPhone not syncing "read" status.

I'm having the same problem. Email messages between MacBook Pro (14inch, Ventura 13.4) not syncing read status with iPhone 13 Pro(iOS 16.5). Apple please fix. Major negative impact on my business. Thank you.

Hi. I have the same issue while running iOS 16 and Mac OS Ventura, the latest versions. It happens with both Exchange and a Gmail accounts. It must be a system issue. I have had lengthy chats with Apple support. We tried Safe Mode on the Mac to no avail. Now they tell me to call in and ask for senior support. I haven’t had time for it yet.

PS And yes, I did restart several times both devices: no change. That is just wishful thinking that the problem might go away with restart.

Hi! Has anyone figured another solution (without the "pain")? This is definitively a system issue: I believe one of the OS or iOS updates has started the no-sync situation. It is time for Apple to figure it out. I have called several times the help desk but they have no idea. What is needed is that more of us report the situation for them to take it seriously.

I have followed the suggested instruction to try and get my unread mail to be consistent across my devices. I even restarted the device before turning the account back on. It still doesn't work. This is incredibly frustrating.

I managed to resolve this, in my case. It’s a bit of a pain but it’s working now.

I signed out of my iCloud account on my iPad, iPhone and MacBook. Then signed back in and it resolved the syncing issue.

The ‘bit of a pain’ part was having to re-add all my cards in Wallet.

This is happening to my email . This is my business email and I have several users link to the same email. Its really frustrating that we dont know what is read and unread. This issue is making my employess unable to work on go. We have to wait until we get back to one computer to stay up to date with the read and unread messages.

Mail is also not keeping track of replies on mobile devices.

This is extremely frustrating as %99.9 of our business is ran by email. APPLE PLEASE HELP AND FIX. I would really appreciate.

I have the problem from about 2-3 YEARS!!, I sent many emails to tech support but doesn’t seem to work anything, I read emails at MacBook and when I see the iPad or iPhone aren’t the same marked as read, so you might imagine the frustration because I mostly control the emails that I want to read after so I left as “unread” but later, take the iPad at home and instead of have for instance 10 emails, shows 40, obviously 30 already read at iPhone o MacBook!!

my problem is just email, no messages

Yes, my MacBook is late 2011 with High Sierra and iPhone and iPad with the latest iOS, might think the problem is the MacBook, BUT the problem is the same if I read at iPhone and then open iPad, so without using the MacBook

the problem is intermittently, some times sync, and sometimes dont

Was hoping the latest update on iphone (17.2.1) and and latest Sonoma would fix, but it's not. One clue to when things started to go wrong was when I did the latest Sonoma update, I had to re-add cards to the wallet. Seems like since then (which has to do with cloud-based settings..) read receipts are not working. I also have times when mail on the phone hangs and will not download new mesages for hours and sometimes 1/2 a day or so.

The last system update (Ventura 13.3.1) seemed to solve the issue. Did so for a couple of days but not "back to normal" that is not syncing across devices.

Hi jschuite,

Thanks for posting in Apple Support Communities.

We understand that messages and emails are shown as read from Mac. Since both devices are updated, make sure both have been restarted. When you restart, all the processes restart. If there’s a software-related issue, restarting a device can sometimes resolve it. To address Messages syncing to Mac, on your iPhone, go to Settings > Messages > Text Message Forwarding turn it off and back on.

Forward SMS/MMS text messages from your iPhone to your Mac or iPad - Apple Support

For email, on iPhone, go to Settings > Mail > Accounts > select the email account and turn off the button for mail and turn it back on.

Regards.

Me too. Emails show different numbers of emails unread across iPhone, iPad and MacBook.

Really annoying now.

PS I mean to write " now back to normal, that is NOT SYNCING! "

Apple support fixed it!

I did not have a problem with iMessage/messages, just with the status of the emails not syncing between the Mac Mail app and the iPhone Mail app.

Please try to follow these steps on your Mac 

On your Mac, open the Mail app, then choose Mail > Preferences. Click Accounts, then select your iCloud account in the sidebar. Under Account Information, make sure the account is turned on and the status is online.

please turn it off and back on please

I also clicked "Mailbox>Synchronize All Accounts" afterwards, read 1-2 email, deleted one, waited for the bottom left text to disappear "checking new messages" and then went to iPhone, Mail and pulled down for refresh.

Hope this works!

More context: I have an icloud account, two gmail accounts and an exchange account in my Mail app.